Day 332: Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’

Today I needed something instrumental to have on while I write, so I thought I’d go back to exploring another classic jazz album. I decided to do my first foray into bebop and/or hard bop, so I went for a bit of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers.

Album cover courtesy of Blue Note

Born in 1919, Art Blakey was a jazz drummer and bandleader from Pittsburgh. While he received some piano lessons at school, he was mostly self-taught as a musician, and he was so much of a virtuoso that he was playing piano for money by the time he was in seventh grade. Legend has it that he switched from piano to drums when he was playing at a jazz club in the 1930s and was forced to give up his seat at the piano at gunpoint, choosing to try the drums instead.

He formed the Jazz Messengers in 1954 with pianist and songwriter Horace Silver, and the jazz collective was active for 35 years, becoming known as an incubator for young talent. The group was formed to do something that was slightly out of the ordinary at the time – Horace Silver and Art Blakey thought the ‘50s jazz scene was centred too much around musicians playing blues and standards on stage without practicing beforehand or thinking about the audience experience, so they wanted to try to win back audiences by doing something different:

Both Horace and Art knew that the only way to get the jazz audience back and make it bigger than ever was to really make music that was memorable and planned, where you consider the audience and keep everything short. They really liked digging into blues and gospel, things with universal appeal. So they put together what was to be called the Jazz Messengers.

My first thing to say about this album would be to be a bit mindful of where you click if you search for this on your preferred music streaming app because whoa nelly, I didn’t know there was stuff like that on Apple Music. But once you pass that small barrier, you’re in for a treat – Moanin’ is smooth and elegant, and every single second of it is fun to listen to. I’ve never really thought I’m much of a trumpet person, but trumpeter Lee Morgan is such a stand-out that it’s making me rethink that.

I think this is the perfect album to have on when you’re focusing on something creative or semi-creative, it’s one of those things that feels like it’s just undeniably good for your brain to listen to. It’s also a perfect record to give to someone who, like me, is new to jazz – it’s very clearly among the most accessible jazz records I’ve heard so far. It’s one of those where if you play this to a music fan, I’d almost guarantee they’ll have a good time. I had my preconceived notions about jazz being hard to learn to understand or inaccessible to my demographic, but something like this is universal.

I may have learned something new today: looks like I might be partial to a bit of hard bop. I love when I get the feeling that I’ve unlocked something new I want to explore, it’s days like this that I really enjoy this project. Moanin’ gets a well-deserved 9/10.